The word from the surgeon

Well, I had my meeting with the surgeon this afternoon. It went better than I had expected. He’s a very nice man and seemed very confident and considerate at the same time. That seems like a good combination .He also said that he saw lung carcinoid tumors like mine about once a month so he has some experience with them.

Here’s what I learned…

The surgeon will do a bronchoscopy to see how things look from the inside. If possible he will do something called a sleeve resection. That’s where they take a section of the airway and re-attach the ends of the pieces. This is preferred because it preserves all the lobes of the lung. Whether or not they can do that depends on the position of the tumor. From what I’ve heard about the position of my tumor, I probably won’t be a candidate for this but I’m very glad that it will be considered. My tumor, it turns out, is about the size of a marble. If a sleeve resection isn’t an option, then he’ll need to remove one or two of the lobes of the lung. The primary goal is to make sure that the ‘margins are clear’ – meaning that all the malignant cells have been removed. They’ll test lymph nodes during the procedure to make sure that there has been no spread. The surgery could take two to four hours. The American Cancer Society has a good web page about carcinoid lung surgery You can also look up “sleeve resection on YouTube but the video looked too unpleasantly detailed for me to want to watch!

The surgery incision will be horizontal along the line of ribs under my right arm. He’ll need to cut through one muscle and some assorted other tissues and then he’ll spread the ribs open. He said that they try not to break any but that it might happen. This sounds unpleasant but it is much better than what I was imagining. I thought he would need to cut vertically and spread the cut ribs open like a rack of lamb.

I’ll be in the hospital for three to five days. The first day will be in the intensive care and then I’ll be home recovering for three or four more weeks. I thought it would be worse than that so this seems like good news to me. I won’t need help doing any sort of personal care stuff, which is also happy news. I’m encouraged to be as active as possible during this point without lifting anything heavy or doing anything too strenuous. I’ll stick to this. I want to be mobile but I don’t want to pop a seam. By all reports this will be a painful process but I’m assured that I’ll get enough pain pills to get me through it.

The pathology report on the tumor will be back in about a week after the surgery. There’s a good probability that surgery will be all I’ll need to have. It’s unlikely but if other treatment is needed it would most likely be chemotherapy. I’ll go for a follow-up appointment in three weeks after the surgery. After that I’ll go every month for a while, then every three months and finally every six months until five years has passed.

So, I have just over a month until November 6 when the show really starts.